Audiovisual display devices are utilized to play broadcast media streams received from broadcast head-ends. Broadcast media streams are received via the Internet and/or via TV broadcasts. For example, Television (TV) broadcasts are generally transmitted by television head-ends over broadcast channels, via RF carriers. The TV head-ends may comprise terrestrial TV head-ends, Cable-Television (CATV), and/or satellite TV head-ends. The TV head-ends may utilize, for example, a set of broadcast channels to facilitate TV broadcast. The TV broadcasts comprise transmission of video and/or audio information, wherein the video and/or audio information may be encoded into the broadcast channels via one of plurality of available modulation schemes. The TV Broadcasts may utilize analog and/or digital modulation format. In analog television systems, picture and sound information are encoded into, and transmitted via analog signals, wherein the audio/video information may be conveyed via broadcast signals, via amplitude and/or frequency modulation on the television signal, based on analog television encoding standard. Analog television broadcasters may, for example, encode their signals using NTSC, PAL and/or SECAM analog encoding and then modulate these signals onto a VHF or UHF RF carriers, for example.
In digital television (DTV) systems, television broadcasts may be communicated by terrestrial, cable, and/or satellite head-ends via discrete (digital) signals, utilizing one or more of available digital modulation schemes, which may comprise, for example, QAM, VSB, QPSK, and/or OFDM. The use of digital signals generally requires less bandwidth than analog signals to convey the same amount of information. Accordingly, DTV systems may enable broadcasters to provide more digital channels within the same space otherwise available to analog television systems. In addition, the use of digital television signals may enable broadcasters to provide high-definition television (HDTV) broadcasting and/or to provide other non-television related service via the digital system. Available digital television systems comprise, for example, ATSC, DVB, and/or VSB based systems. Video and/or audio information may be encoded into digital television signals utilizing various video and/or audio encoding and/or compression algorithms, which may comprise, for example, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC, MP3, AC-3, AAC, and/or HE-AAC.
Media streams are sometimes broadcast via the Internet. Internet head-ends are utilized, for example, to communicate multimedia streaming data, which may correspond to TV broadcasts, via the Internet based on one or more applicable networking standards, including TCP/IP.
Televisions (TVs) and/or other audiovisual playback devices are utilized to play received TV and/or media broadcasts. The received TV and/or media broadcasts are inputted directly into the playback devices, and the playback devices are enabled to perform, for example, necessary tuning and/or processing operations to extract the audio/video information. Alternately, specialized devices referred to as set-top boxes are utilized to provide necessary processing operations that convert TV and/or Internet based media broadcasts to signals suitable for play via the playback devices.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.